BANE OF MY EXISTENCE

Today I noticed that the bane of my existence is in flower. Curses! The lady next door calls it the potato vine, because it develops potato-like nodules along the vine which drop to the ground when you try to rip it off whatever it's trying to strangle and each nodule grows another plant (or two or five if that one nodule breaks up further). The flowers apparently also help the plant spread. The middle photo shows the vine strangling next door's mulberry tree, about 6m off the ground. Despite hating it with a passion I couldn't help but admire the prettiness of the flower stalks which remind me a little of Ivory Curl (top photo), but of course would much prefer to have a Ivory Curl growing.